A cyclone alert in the north-east Bay of Bengal was withdrawn apparently after proximity to land ruled out the intensification of a deep depression off the Myanmar and Bangladesh coast on Wednesday.

An afternoon bulletin of India Meteorological Department (IMD) had briefly flagged the cyclone formation alert after the previous day's well-marked low-pressure area underwent intensification twice over during the few hours in the morning.

FURIOUS PACE

The system spun furiously to become a depression, and further onward to a deep depression, putting it just another spin away from being named as a tropical cyclone.

Global cyclone categorisation methods had already tagged it as a ‘numbered cyclone 02B,' which is the penultimate step ahead of named cyclone classification.

The evening bulletin of IMD withdrew formation alert and merely said that the deep depression over north-east Bay moved north-eastwards and lay centred south of Cox's Bazar (Bangladesh).

The system is likely to move further north-eastwards and cross Bangladesh coast close to Cox's Bazar by the evening or the night.